Almond Grove, Los Gatos Homes for sale, recent sales and a Property Nerd’s guide

The district is a tight grid between Glen Ridge Avenue and North Santa Cruz Avenue. Bachman, Nicholson, Bean and Almendra avenues run across it; Tait, Wilder and Massol avenues run the other way, and Bachman Court is tucked in at the north end. The streets are concrete, and that is deliberate: the district ordinance lists the concrete roadways, to be kept as they looked in 1976, and the date stamps in the concrete sidewalks as features that need Historic Preservation Committee review before anyone changes them.

Between 2016 and 2019 the Town rebuilt those streets. Phase I repoured Bachman Avenue in concrete in December 2016. Phase II replaced the roadway panels, curbs, gutters, sidewalks, ramps, driveway approaches and planter strips on eight more streets, including Tait, Wilder, Massol, Nicholson, Almendra, Bean and Glen Ridge, in half-street pours. By October 2018 crews had placed more than 40,000 square yards of concrete across both phases, about 650 truckloads. Roughly 100 new street trees were planned for Bean, Massol, Wilder and Almendra, and the Town cut the ribbon on Wilder Avenue on June 22, 2019.

The houses are what the Town calls a mix of Victorian architecture, from informal wood-frame cottages to larger homes, with bungalow cottages and Colonial Revival and Mission Revival houses built somewhat later. The Town's design guidelines list more than 100 contributing structures, with the longest lists on Tait and Wilder avenues, followed by Massol, Bachman and Almendra. Remodels follow those styles. Additions are supposed to read as subordinate to the original house, new houses must use a style already recognized in the district (generally Victorian, Craftsman/bungalow or Mission Revival/Mediterranean), and new porches are expected to be deep enough for porch furniture, like the old ones.